


and i’ll kill you if my head goes wrong

by fairbanks



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Choking, Collars, Do Not Archive, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, No Safeword, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Violence, Under-negotiated Kink, idk is daisy a warning, one sided daisy/basira, one sided elias/jon, spoilers for most of season 3, though if the disasters got their acts together maybe it wouldn't be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:05:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairbanks/pseuds/fairbanks
Summary: Daisy’s always enjoyed the feeling of licking her teeth. When she was younger she’d run her tongue over the smooth enamel of her canines, down to the point that always felt sharper than it was against the blunt sensitivity of her tongue. As a little girl she’d think of wolves, of big cats with their jowls raised in threat. She’d raise her own lips in a snarl and her chest would flutter.daisy likes to chase and jon likes being chased. it's a surprisingly bad combination.





	and i’ll kill you if my head goes wrong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber/gifts).



Daisy’s always enjoyed the feeling of licking her teeth. When she was younger she’d run her tongue over the smooth enamel of her canines, down to the point that always felt sharper than it was against the blunt sensitivity of her tongue. As a little girl she’d think of wolves, of big cats with their jowls raised in threat. She’d raise her own lips in a snarl and her chest would flutter.

 

She runs her tongue over her teeth as she sits in front of Elias’ desk, her posture slumped in refusal to show tension in front of this particular monster. She wouldn’t sit straight and tight and intimidated for Elias fucking Bouchard.

 

Elias takes his time with his files, makes her wait. The tip of her tongue presses hard against the point of one of her canines. Sometimes she still wishes it was sharp enough to pierce her tongue that way.

 

“My apologies for the delay,” Elias tells her, straightens some papers and looks over at Daisy in diplomatic neutrality. “Now, I have some orders for you but I understand you have a request?”

 

“Let Basira come out with me. I could use a partner for your _errands_.” Daisy stares him down, spits out the last word as the mockery it was.

 

Elias never shows discomfort, not to her. To her, with her, he always sits tall, doesn’t bother with little acts of humanity - blinking, confusion, discomfort or affection. With her his human persona is an ill fitting skin suit, and she knows behind his impenetrable gaze he’s mocking her. Elias Bouchard taunts, shows her the monster right under his pale skin and pressed suit knowing she can’t act. He flexes his neck because she can’t go for the jugular.

 

The bastard has the gall to smile when he answers her. “I’m afraid Basira is better suited to remain here, helping in the Archives.”

 

“She was a damned cop, Bouchard, that’s what she’s suited for.”

 

“Was a cop,” he reminds her, gentle and pointed and driving her jaw tight. “And now she is here, and I do believe she’s found a certain level of comfort, don’t you?”

 

“You forced her to-“

 

“Perhaps, but she’s never requested to assist you, even when we’ve spoken,” Elias interrupts with a well aimed stab, forcing Daisy’s mouth so tightly shut her teeth ache. “I’ll broach the topic, if you insist. Until then I’d like you to keep an eye on Jon when he’s out.”

 

“You’re really going to have me babysit him?” Daisy spits. She imagines prying Elias’ teeth out one by one, keeping them as a trophy. His smile in pieces at her bedside. It shouldn’t, but it makes her feel better.

 

“We’re at a critical juncture and Jon has… unfortunate habits, one of which is getting kidnapped by those who would sooner see his tongue removed than hear him out,” explains Elias calmly.

 

Daisy sits back, snorts. “I’d be one of them. Do you really think he’s going to be happy about being babysat?”

 

Elias smiles, the faint hint of teeth she can almost hear clattering in a glass jar. “Jon doesn’t need to know.”

 

—

 

Daisy sometimes thinks of the look Jon gave her as she pressed a knife to his throat. He was lying on the forest floor, hair windswept and pulse hammering against the blade. Crew’s body was a few feet away, pretty blue eyes lifelessly watching the scene. Underneath them all were the bodies and remains of dozens that met a similar fate to Crew, the same fate Jon would share.

 

Monsters, every one of them. Monsters like Crew, monsters like Sims. Still, none of them looked at her the way Sims did in that moment.

 

His skin trembled under her palm, and she decided his voice box will be first. It took barely any pressure for the skin to begin parting, beading blood then in small rivulets. Jon’s pupils constricted, he tried to speak but her grip wouldn’t allow it. He was scared, so very scared to die, so very scared of her as his pulse fluttered against her fingers. Such a small thing then, such a little bird with hollow bones, so fragile and so very ensnared.

 

Daisy could have dug out the muscles and bits that gave him power over her all those times before. She could have forced them down his ravaged throat as he bled out. She could have thrown the knife away and sunk her teeth in until there was a cavern where his skin should have been.

 

It makes her shudder when the thought strikes, tongue pressed hard against her teeth. There was a raise of bile at first, when she thought such things, Elias’ mockery in the back of her mind about _humanity_. With each little beastie she kills for Elias she finds herself caring less, just a little less. The shudder runs down her spine, fast and hot.

 

They all look at her with that faint touch of fear, all of the Archives but Elias and Basira. Jon’s fear is the sharpest, a flicker of the rapid pulse she felt that night.

 

Yet he still left himself alone with her, time and time again. Foolish ass, she thinks. No wonder Elias worried for his little lost monster with a tendency to rest his neck against sharp, waiting teeth.

 

—

 

Jon stands with Basira at the cafe around the corner. There’s bags under his eyes but Basira looks fresher than she has in weeks. They laugh over the smoothie in Basira’s hands- Basira laughs and Jon smiles. Daisy’s only seen him smile once, watching the bullet ridden trail of Sara Baldwin’s sawdust after her escape. That smile was feral.

 

Daisy’s teeth grind when she can’t think of the last time she heard Basira laugh.

 

 

 

 

Jon watches Tim without Tim knowing, the assistant asleep in the breakroom. Jon’s look is heavy and conflicted, and Daisy doesn’t care to read in between the lines. For a moment he looks as if he’s going to go in but he doesn’t, just turns away. Daisy watches him without him knowing. _Coward_ , she thinks.

 

 

 

 

Jon falls asleep at his desk. Martin watches Jon without him knowing often, and is quick to come with a blanket to drape over his shoulders. Martin’s hand hovers too long, too close to Jon’s greying temples. When he leaves Daisy doesn’t think of cowardice.

 

 

 

 

 

Elias knows she’s watching as he and Jon speak in the hallway. Jon does not. His shoulders are tense with irritation and Elias’ eyes sparkle with a hint of amusement. Jon snaps and gripes as Elias listens, allows it, all with the gaze of a man watching something quite interesting grow.

 

It’s the closest to human Elias ever looks, and Daisy makes note of it. She remembers it.

 

—

 

“Shouldn’t you be home by now?” Daisy watches Basira rifle through files, for all the world a dutiful employee and not a captive. She looks a degree more peaceful here than she ever did at the police station, no bags under her eyes and renewed purpose in the strong set of her shoulders.

 

She smiles more. She smiles at Daisy, that half quirk that looks like a secret between them. Basira sees Daisy, always has in some way, yet she was never scared. “Shouldn’t you? Your show’s coming on.”

 

Daisy snorts, shifts into the fantasy of leaning in and catching that warm scent Basira carries around with her, like the memory of a home-cooked meal and the sun warming skin to a comfortable glow.

 

In this pretty world behind her eyelids she stays close, asks Basira to come home with her. Basira smiles that shared secret, says yes. In this world Daisy doesn’t need blood on her teeth or the chase pumping through her veins. In it she can wrap herself up in Basira, touch her gently, taste her and keep her and wrap her up in her arms. She can breath freely for the first time in years and say, with certainty, that she’s still human. She can promise all the gentleness and passion and warmth Basira needs just as easily as she can promise the pain and pinning and blood.

 

“Tell that to Bouchard,” Daisy says in reality, shrugs a shoulder and lets the ghost of ‘what ifs’ fade like steam on a mirror.

 

Basira looks curious, ready to ask more, but in that moment Jon decides to leave, so Daisy must leave as well. She lets her frustration well against him alone, too tired to turn it rightfully on herself.

 

—

 

Daisy doesn’t smoke, never has, never felt the urge or need. Jon smokes under the streetlight that night and Daisy watches, wishes she had a toothpick or something to chew on and break. An article she read ages ago said that dogs chew to relieve anxiety, agitation, and the thought sends a ripple of fresh agita through her.

 

Jon drops his cigarette and crushes it under his heel half-done.

 

For a man in constant danger he’s out often, even if it’s just to the fire escape of his building to smoke. Daisy recognizes this route as the way to a little store on the route home, one he’ll buy cigarettes and coffee beans from.

 

But Jon never drops his cigarette before it’s done, just a long line of ash threatening to dirty his fingers. Daisy’s eyes narrow.

 

He goes the wrong way from his usual route, down a different street, and with a spike of adrenaline she realizes he knows he’s being followed. His shoulders are tense, his head hung and defensive, his step quick- he’s retreating and she’s giving chase. She’s chasing him.

 

The heady burst of adrenaline is sweet, and Jonathan Sims couldn’t hope to escape her in his wildest dreams. She’s followed him before, watched him before Elias ensnared her, and she caught him then. She doesn’t need to catch him now but still she follows at a safe distance, plays with his sense of urgency and watches him rush his way into an alley with ‘bad idea’ written all over it.

 

Idiot, she thinks as she follows, tongue against teeth.

 

Jon’s hit a run at this point, grasping the strap of his shoulder bag and panting, a fussy academic type in no shape to be dashing about. He stumbles and falls, scrambles to his feet when she reaches the alley proper, and then he surprises her. Instead of running he turns, that little dull pocket knife in hand and eyes wild. He lashes out, feral again in a more inhuman way than before, the fight of a cornered animal.

 

Daisy grabs his wrist without missing a beat, twisting it until he yelps and drops the weapon. He falls to his knees and she forces his face to the ground, hand tight in his hair. Her blood _sings_ and she bares her teeth.

 

“Wh-“ Jon starts and Daisy doesn’t allow it, tightens her grip in his hair and twists his wrist so the word is lost in a yelp. She can’t see his face but she swears she can smell a tang of fear, as clear and sharp as the bead of sweat running down his neck. As obvious as the desperate heaving of his chest.

 

“Kept that butter knife, did you?” Daisy’s voice has the effect she expects- he inhales sharply in surprise then calms to a wariness that knows the danger hadn’t quite passed. The stark fear is better and so very easy to pull from him, just a squeeze of her hand and he plays like an instrument, a pained gasp clawed up his throat.

 

With a jerking pull she moves him, releasing his wrist to push him down onto his back. Before he can think to speak her hand is at his throat. His pulse picks up with a lovely tremble when she picks up the pocket knife fallen beside them. It’s intoxicating in a way that has her eyes lazily lid.

 

The whole of the front of his throat is in her hand and she presses her thumb and forefinger in to slow his airflow, slow and steady rather than rough, only to watch the dawning panic. When he tries to open his mouth she tightens like a vice.

 

Shifting brushes her thigh against his groin and the growing bulge there. A laugh tears through her and Jon closes his eyes in what she can only assume is shame.

 

“Hell Sims, bit of a freak, aren’t you?” Daisy eases her grip just enough to let him pull in a desperate breath, eyes still shut tightly. She moves that old, familiar pocket knife to his throat, slides it gently against the thin scar it left when she nearly cut out his vocal chords.

 

His arousal doesn’t seem to wane- in fact he jerks up against her thigh, involuntary but no less grinding. His eyes remain closed, and she presses the knife warningly. “Look at me.”

 

It’s enough to coax his eyes open, the fear of before mixing with shame and something she might even say is desperate. Heat pools low in her at how his eyes can’t leave her face, damp with exertion. She wonders what he sees in her now, her blood running so very hot still, but she knows better than to allow him his voice.

 

“Weird little monster,” she sneers, watches him grimace and squirm. “Were you getting off on it the last time? Knife at your throat and a corpse at your side?”

 

He grabs at her wrist, what breath she allows him a wheeze. His face is a fine shade of red now, a tear beading at the corner of his eye and falling when he blinks, a long line down to the shell of his ear.

 

She watches it, avid, presses her thigh into his crotch harder and hears the guttural sound that catches in his throat. He grinds into her, eyes closing again until the knife at his throat presses just hard enough to gently part a thin layer of skin.

 

His eyes fly open then, and she rewards him with another rough press of her leg. “Good. Go on then Sims, get yourself off like a dog humping a leg.” When he merely stares for a brief moment her tone goes to low snarl, “Now.”

 

For a few seconds she considers cutting off his air supply in warning, an idea dashed when he hesitantly begins to grind up against her leg. Her grip loosens on his throat just enough to let his wheezing become sharp and desperate gasps, his pace speeding up steadily as whatever shame he felt was inevitably overpowered by desperation.

 

He made a fine mess, Daisy would give him that much, the grey hairs at his temple damp with sweat and glasses askew from the struggle. The sounds he makes are pitiful, choked cries and gurgles and panting. It’s impossible not to lean in, giving him an even better position to grind against her. She can feel a warm, wet patch now growing on leg and laughs, low, into Sim’s ear.

 

“Quite the slut, _Archivist_ ,” she drawls, a comment that has his pace stuttering and coming back stronger than ever.

 

Her nose brushes down his neck, the smell of fear and desperation heady and intense. She moves the knife from his scar, now crossed with a thin line like a paper cut. When she presses her mouth to it Jon shudders. When she bites at it hard enough to bruise he cries out and comes against her leg.

 

They stay still a moment, Daisy with flesh against her teeth and Jon trembling beneath her. For the briefest moment her mind flashes with the image of biting down harder and harder until she tore out his throat.

 

She lets go, both her teeth and her hand against his throat, and stands. “Go home, Sims. It’s dangerous out here at this time.”

 

Jon rolls onto his knees, one hand braced against the ground as he gulps down air and shakes. Daisy doesn’t give him time to find his voice, leaves and find a nook to watch the alley from.

 

It takes him ten minutes but he emerges, rumpled and dusty despite his best efforts. She watches as he heads back home, licking her teeth.

 

—

 

“I don’t remember telling you to rough house with him,” Elias mentions to her later when she’s in his office, just finished reporting to him of her week mostly spent watching Jon. She didn’t mention the alley, never expected she needed to. It makes her wonder if he was watching her for the first warning signs of betrayal or if he was simply watching Jon.

 

Elias’ tone has no inflection besides the calm lilt he wore rain or shine, the shifting thing under his human suit barely peeking from the edges. There’s the slightest pressure to how he presses pen to page, an inkling of irritation. It’s sweet on Daisy’s lips and she licks her teeth.

 

“He made it home, didn’t he?”

 

“Hm,” Elias agrees, glances up to her finally with an unimpressed look. “He’s not your toy, Miss Tonner.”

 

“No, he’s yours, eh?” She snorts, all the inelegance she can muster against the austere backsplash of his office. “It’s good he stays on his toes. A little ‘rough housing’ reminds him what could be around any corner.”

 

“I very much doubt Jon has ever forgotten that.”

 

Elias watches her and she won’t look down or away. She can see it in the tense line of his jaw, the pen still stabbed against paper. Little tells, tiny shows he wants to order her to stop and leave him be. She expects it. She _wants_ it, just so she could break the rule.

 

He doesn’t in the end and she can’t understand why. “Dismissed, Miss Tonner.”

 

—

 

Jon’s more careful in the days that follow and so is she. His gaze traces crowds as he walks into work, he checks around corners as Martin follows at his heels with the day’s news around the Archives, he presses his back to walls more. He locks his office door and wears anything with a high enough neck to cover what Daisy left him. It irritates her more than it should.

 

On the way home one day he runs again, like he did before, shoulders tight and step pointed. There is no one following him besides her and he hasn’t seen her, doesn’t even glance in the right direction. Paranoia, she wonders, and doesn’t really care.

 

Daisy follows, slinks, thinks of Elias’ eyes on her back and wants to look up at the sky like she was spitting in the face of some whimsical god, saying _stop_ me. Try it.

 

Jon turns down an alley, his breath heaving but more controlled. He stops and waits, and Daisy stops as well, still out of sight a street away. He doesn’t move from the spot but to turn, survey the area. He waits and waits and waits until whatever resolve in him snaps and he leaves again, back home.

 

And Daisy watches, traces the soft slump of his shoulders and swears she smells a different tang. Disappointment.

 

It isn’t particularly hard to get to his home before he does.

 

—

 

The situation isn’t all that different from their first confrontation, something Daisy carefully constructs.

 

She waits until he unlocks and opens the door to his flat before making her move, twisting his arm behind his back and shoving him inside as he yelps. The door she kicks closed behind her clicks with ringing finality.

 

This time she doesn’t let him start. “You wanted me to chase you. Itching for another round?”

 

Jon opens and closes his mouth, comically bereft of words, floundering. She likes it, even when he does speak and his tone shakes. “I certainly don’t remember asking you to stalk me to my home then manhandle me.”

 

There’s a song and dance ready to start here, and she can see the cracks in his stuffiness all wrapped around him like armor. She rather likes the denial. Daisy isn’t going to pretend his genuine fear isn’t was attracts her most.

 

His breath catches as she twists his arm hard enough to truly hurt. She can feel the heat and faint tremble of his skin as she leans in and murmurs into his ear, “You didn’t have to ask. You ran, I caught you, now you owe me. One chance, Sims. Say no or I stay and cash that in.”

 

Daisy isn’t surprised when he stays silent, breath heavy and shaking more pronounced as the quiet drags on. She wonders for the briefest moments if she would have actually left if he said it. She knows he wonders the same, and the taste of that is sharp and delightful on her tongue.

 

They’re close like this, her chest against his back, his arm still twisted like a final barrier between them. She leans so her breath ghosts his neck, watches the way his pulse races as she breathes in. Fear, she swears she smells it. Fear and something brightly expensive, something that takes a few moments for her to understand.

 

(Elias has Jon in his office, their meetings scheduled by Bouchard for every Monday before the end of the work day. Today’s such a day, a typical meeting, and Daisy watches from a farther hall as Jon comes out of the room, Elias behind him.

 

She thinks of dogs on leashes, the type trained for shows and medals and greatness the owner would reap all the true rewards of. Elias’ eyes always follow Jon with that critical pride, molding away the imperfections until what he wanted underneath shines.

 

He places a friendly hand on Jon’s shoulder, leans in to tell him something with a smug sort of smirk. Jon looks irritated but doesn’t move away, too well trained and oblivious.

 

Elias turns and beckons Daisy to join him when Jon walks away. When Daisy passes into his office she smells cologne and ink, both heady and performative- proper. The scent of a human mask being maintained to perfection.

 

It gives her a headache, really. She wonders if he could still smell her on Jon’s skin.)

 

Daisy inhales sharply again, tightens her grip when Jon makes a sound like he’s about to question her actions. The scent isn’t particularly strong, and it’s one she’ll take great pleasure in wiping away. Jon’s alarm already punctures the smell, salt and adrenaline.

 

“No speaking unless I say so,” she tells him, and is thoroughly unsurprised when he replies immediately.

 

“And what, should I call you ‘mistress’ as well?” His tone drips with disdain, followed by a stillness that means it may have slipped out unplanned. Daisy exhales amusement into his pulse, giving him only a moment of hope his transgression would go unpunished before she kicks the back of his knee and releases his arm, sending him tumbling to the floor.

 

She catches his hair, yanking his head up with a yelp torn from his lips. The angle forces him to stare up at her until she releases and slaps him, enjoying the ring of it against the walls. “No speaking unless I say so.”

 

This time the statement gets a nod as Jon swallows and rubs his jaw. His eyes are so much brighter than before.

 

“Rather a painslut, aren’t you? Cute,” she muse, circling him in a way even she can see is predatory. “Take off your sweater and let me see your neck.”

 

There’s only a brief hesitation before he pulls at the bottom of his sweater, dragging it over his head with jerky, nervous movements. He has a button up under it and she gestures at the top buttons, waits until he undoes them then grasps his hair again to angle his head back and expose his neck.

 

The skin is in the yellow and green healing stages of bruising, not terribly deep or large but impossible to miss against his pale skin. It’s shaped in a perfect circle of teeth around his scar and Daisy likes it, likes the sickly color and the way Jon winces when she thumbs at it. She lets go of his hair and watches him cover the mark vindictively, his look a muddle of unease, indignation and heat.

 

“Rather a sadist, aren’t you?” Jon murmurs and Daisy wonders if he really does love to be punished so much or he simply can’t help it. He braces himself as she chuckles, as she watches him regard her with nerves and stubbornness both.

 

At least until she squats beside him, the grip she had on his throat and bruising slowly tightening. When she does that Jon’s eyes widen, any questions choked with his restricted windpipe. The bruise under her fingers goes pale around the edges as his face goes red. She smiles at him, a sharp curl of teeth. “What was that?”

 

Jon opens his mouth, closes it again, barely able to get a breath out let alone words. Daisy doesn’t relent until he’s shaking, until she knows black is starting to bead at the corners of his vision. She lets him go, watches him curl in on himself and gasp for only a moment before yanking him up by the hair.

 

“What was that?” she repeats, knowing he hasn’t caught his breath and revelling in the way he still tries to sputter a response. Her hand shifts on his throat, pressing against the thin cut she left there during their encounter in the alley. No amount of pressure will get it to bleed properly, a fact she rather regrets.

 

It does have Jon wincing and shaking, perhaps against the memory of metal against his skin. She doesn’t need to look down to know he’s hard again.

 

“I… I’m sorry,” he manages, voice rough and appealing in a way his usual demeanor of paranoia and snotty academia never was.

 

“Why?” Daisy presses.

 

Jon swallows, the movement tight against her fingers. “I’m not to- to speak unless you give me permission.”

 

“Good boy,” she gives him that, watches in interest as a faint shiver ran down his skin. Daisy nearly snorts — of course, Elias’ pet monster is weak to a pat on the head and a good job. It’s all so pathetic she could retch, but that was the appeal, wasn’t it?

 

Daisy stands, leaves Jon kneeling on the floor and catching his breath as she finds a chair to pull over. She sits in the same way she always did in Elias’ office— slouched, wide legged, eyes on the door. Different reasons here but it has the same effect, attention drawn to the immovable way she held herself, a threat with no attempts to hide the fact.

 

Elias always watched her coolly when she did. Jon far less so.

 

“You aren’t allowed to use your _power_ on me,” says Daisy, lets any amusement or heat of the situation to die on her lips, the rule ice cold. “The moment you do, accident or not, I really will pull out your voice box. Understood?”

 

It takes Jon a moment but he nods hastily, the fingers he has cradling his throat touching the old, thin scar. A good reminder, she thinks.

 

“I doubt I have to ask you about any diseases you may have. I get the distinct feeling you don’t have much of a sex life, do you, Sims?” She draws the words out, long and mocking, enjoys the way he scowls at her but holds his tongue. “You’re desperate enough to grind against my leg in an alley, after all. Am I right?”

 

For a moment she thinks he may just make some comment worthy of punishment, his jaw working even as he squirms where he kneels. “I’m clean,” he finally spits out, and she nods in approval. Papers and proof weren’t necessary, if he was lying he could guess where that would get him.

 

“Good, now come here.” Daisy leans back, watches Jon start to get up before she smacks her heel against the ground to get his attention. “I didn’t say get up. Crawl.”

 

Sims’ moments of irritation, of inner conflict over humiliating himself, are something she’s growing rather fond of watching. He wears his heart on his sleeve, or at least his disdain and reluctant arousal on his face, and she swears she can see the shift from rebellion to begrudging acquiescence like colors shifting in a gradient.

 

He does as he’s told.

 

“Better,” she tells him, eyes sharp on the embarrassed flush high on his cheeks. “Now let’s put that tongue to better use.”

 

It’s clear he isn’t quite sure what he’s doing, from the way he watches her shove her slacks down to the way he hesitates coming forward. The first press of his tongue to her is sloppy, searching, and she tightens her grip on his hair until a rough and gasping drag of his tongue over her clit has her purr.

 

Jon’s a quick learner at least, groans low and lovely when her fingers find his bruised neck and press, when her grip on his hair tugs too hard. “Good,” she offers him, a scrap that has him shivering and pushing harder, tongue pressing deep. “Pathetic little thing.”

 

When he pulls back for a breath his face is slick with her and she thinks with certain crude enjoyment that he won’t smell like anyone but her when he’s done.

 

And finish she does- with Daisy shoving his head to and fro as she pleased, with Jon groaning more, muffled in her skin until she comes with a growl that has him exhale hot against her. She releases his hair and he pulls back a mess, pupils blown. When she sees his hand pressing to his crotch she kicks his chest, sends him sprawling onto his back.

 

“I don’t remember saying you were allowed that,” she’s breathless and hot, feels a pleasant thrill through her skin at the way he scrambles on the floor. _Try and get away,_ she thinks with iron tinge on her tongue and heat in her breath. _Try._

 

He does, the most basic of aborted attempts to stand, and she drags him up to his knees with an arm around his throat. She can feel the rumble of a groan and gasp against her forearm.

 

“Please,” he gasps, and the tremble of fear is all she needs. Daisy presses her face to the crook of Jon’s neck. She smells salt and musk, the quiet familiarity of herself.

 

“Unzip your pants,” she orders. When he does she licks the sharp point of her teeth. “Touch yourself.”

 

He does, a sound catching in his throat, hand too dry and position too precarious, knees painful against the hard floor. The way he moans and attempts to muffle it, bites his lips still wet with her, you’d think it was perfect.

 

“Faster,” Daisy tells him. “Harder.”

 

She’s never had a particular interest in men or their anatomy, finds nothing sensual in the mechanics of the act. It’s the tears beading at the corners of Jon’s tightly closed eyes, the way he squirms against her like prey in a trap, the ease in which she could cut off his breath— cut off his motions with just a word. Just a press. Those are what leave her rapt.

 

“Not until I say.” Daisy nips at his collar, waits until the sounds coming from him are sobs.

 

“Please,” he gasps, and he’s helpless. “Please please please.”

 

“Stop.”

 

Jon stops with a ragged sound, cock an angry red, dripping. A plea for mercy is written in every line of his body against her, every tension she can feel thrumming.

 

And hell if she doesn’t smile when she lets him go. “Not tonight, Sims.”

 

He actually does sob then, palms pressing to the ground, surprisingly obedient in his tremors. Daisy pulls her pants back on, zips up, stretches and enjoys the heady warmth of a good orgasm still running sluggish in her veins. Jon’s breath is still racing below her, knelt on the ground. She feels his wet eyes on her.

 

“D-Daisy,” he tries and she turns, looking down at him. Such a sight, sweating and dripping precum, eyes wide and hair tangled, red all over.

 

“If you get yourself off I’ll know,” she promises, reaching down to grasp his chin. “You never lied well Sims.”

 

“You can’t-“

 

“I can. This is what you signed up for.”

 

And she leaves like that, amused at the muffled frustration he smothers behind his hand when she goes.

 

—

 

The next day Jon is shrapnel and fire.

 

Daisy makes no attempt to hide herself, smiles when he catches sight of her and goes red. He hides in his office, snaps at most who try and speak with him.

 

Martin, of all things, seems happy about it.

 

“He seems better- I mean, I _know_ that sounds daft, he just… he used to be a little, you know, peevish, like this. Lately he’s only been scared.”

 

“Peevish is one way to put it,” Melanie drawls, kicking aside a box of statements with little regard. “I mean given the look of him you’d think he’d be in a good mood. Maybe his date didn’t seal the deal.”

 

Basira’s tone is amusement and reproach. “Melanie.”

 

“What? Turtlenecks in the summer, marks peeking over them, not to mention that hoarseness didn’t come from a cold- Jon definitely got some action. Either that or he got kidnapped. Again.”

 

“He didn’t- you can’t just-“ Martin sputters, going red.

 

“Maybe he got blueballed,” Daisy interjects. It’s worth it for the sound Martin chokes on and the way Basira hides a smile.

 

The good mood lasts up until lunch, when Basira doesn’t show up at the breakroom. Daisy knew her schedule here, sturdy and steady Basira always had one. It sets her teeth on edge and she roams the Archives, finds Basira at a desk and speaking softly into a recorder.

 

“— changed but Calvin was still my son, my little boy. So what else could I do but love him despite my fears?”

 

The name strikes Daisy, frozen in doorway. Her back aches and she thinks of playing in secret where they wasn’t allowed. She thinks of dares and the stubborn set of a little boy’s eyes as he went into the construction site.

 

She thinks of how long it took to dig his grave.

 

Basira’s tone is soft, just like Calvin Benchley’s mother. _Take care of my son, won’t you Alice?_

 

I did, she thinks. I did.

 

“And he stood their shaking, eyes so wide, staring at me in the hallway of a house he had been kicked out of for years. Everything I knew, all the bloodstains he wouldn’t explain, all the glee I saw in his eyes when he stood over that screaming man— all of it, it left me. Every horrible thing I’ve told you meant nothing as I took him in my arms.

 

He said nothing, just shook and gripped me too tight. I think— god help us both, I think he was trying not to strangle me. I think I knew even then and I couldn’t pull away.

 

But he didn’t. He was the one who pulled back, away from me. He said nothing, even when I begged him not to leave. I just felt… felt that if he did I would never see him again.

 

I didn’t. He’s been missing for long enough to be considered dead.”

 

Basira finishes with a low exhale. “Well… Statement ends, I guess. Calvin Benchley— yeah, police say he’s been missing for years with no leads. It— Daisy.”

 

Basira looks up, brow quirked in surprise. Daisy wonders if the door frame would splinter with just a little more force of her white knuckled grip.

 

“Oh, I was hoping to see you. You remember Calvin Benchley? Says here you were part of—“

 

“No.”

 

Daisy feels her teeth snap around the word tight and sharp enough Basira’s gaze goes narrow. “No, I don’t remember. Why are you doing this?”

 

“Doing…?”

 

“Statements. You’re a _hostage_.”

 

“Martin could use the help,” Basira answers easily, eyes still searching on her. “I can’t just sit around reading forever.”

 

“You could come with me.”

 

“Elias says you’ve been following Jon mostly, do you really need help with that?” Basira stands, placing the folder of Daisy’s handiwork to the side.

 

Daisy’s nostrils flair at the lovely little coincidence of it all, a well spun trap. “Elias give you that?”

 

“Give me…? Oh, this statement? Yeah. I told him I’d help Martin and he pointed me to what needed to be done. Daisy, what’s going on?”

 

Basira’s concern is so pointed, patience lost on waiting for Daisy to explain herself. She always did give Daisy space, read her tension like tea leaves. Predictions of disaster in the future, read along the curled line of Daisy’s fist.

 

The whir of the tape seems so loud suddenly. “Nothing.”

 

Daisy escapes, prowls down the hall and comes up from the Archives to see Elias speaking with a group of researchers in the lobby. They lock eyes and he smiles. When the group around him turn to follow his gaze their eyes seem like an extension of his.

 

Elias doesn’t dare her to march over, doesn’t pin her with a smug look. He simply watches, waits.

 

She leaves, slamming the lobby door behind her.

 

—

 

The hateful tension doesn’t leave her but Daisy wasn’t the mindless beast Elias implied. If she was going to sink her teeth into him it wouldn’t be his armor, but his soft spots. She wants blood and flesh, not steel.

 

The whole walk she imagines Basira tutting, telling her spite was fighting fire with fire. Everything burns, she says in Daisy’s mind.

 

(He’ll turn to Basira again to strike back, a smaller thing inside says but she _can’t stop_.)

 

With a plastic bag in one hand she knocks on Jon’s door. It goes to show what he expects of her that he’s shocked when she waits for him to open the door to let her in.

 

“Daisy,” he says, wary, and she looks him over.

 

“Did you do as I say?”

 

Jon opens his mouth, snaps it closed just as quickly. The irritation is plain in his tone when he finally answers, “Yes.”

 

He isn’t hard now that she can see, not straining or needy, but she believe him. “Good boy,” she says and watches the shiver down his back.

 

“I got you something,” she continues, walks over to a table and drops the plastic bag down. He follows her, eyes widening when she pulls out a dog collar, cheap and black with a plastic clip and metal ring.

 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he tells her, color rising traitorously on his face. When she turns he takes an unconscious step back.

 

“You can put this on yourself or I can put it on for you.” Daisy holds the offending collar up with one finger, notes Jon’s interest is most certainly no longer absent. “You can run, if you like.”

 

She says it seriously, an offer he blinks at, hesitates over, and takes. For the first time since she spoke to Basira that day Daisy grins.

 

It isn’t a long pursuit, Jon running for the hall and into a bedroom he isn’t able to close the door fast enough to. Daisy lets herself go, rushes him and they both fall in a heap to the floor. He fights, he _fights_ and she thinks she laughs as she rolls and pins him. The closest to fondness she’s ever felt for Jonathan Sims is when he claws at her arms holding him down.

 

The fight drains when Daisy puts her hand to his throat, feels that familiar rapid pulse and smells that tang fear. She presses her tongue to her teeth and stands. “Kneel.”

 

Jon does, panting softly, and he bares his neck for her as she unclips the collar and clicks it around his throat. Even adjusted to a loose setting it’s a snug fit, meant for an actual dog, not a man.

 

Daisy hooks her finger in the metal ring, watches the quiet gasp Jon gives when it tugs against bruised skin. She hopes with all her being that Elias is watching, that her teeth are sinking into the vulnerable bits of Elias Bouchard not covered quite so well.

 

She drags him bodily to the bed, onto his back, tears at his clothes with abandon he's too far gone to try and prevent. Her fingers shove into his mouth, hit the back of his throat with a gurgling gag from the man until she pulls the out, sticky wet. Those same fingers press into him, relentless until he's gasping. "Daisy, Daisy please-"

 

"Shut up," she orders, scissors her fingers and watches him arch.

 

Then she's crawling over him, ripping off her pants and underwear before straddling his hips. He's hard, of course he is, and it doesn't wane when Daisy grabs his cock too roughly too tight. Jon just squirms, forever torn on trying to get away or pushing closer. She snorts, lines him up and sinks down.

 

Daisy's never been a particular fan of being penetrated, prefers tongues and clever fingers to clumsy toys and cock. For the moment she wants the hard stretch of it, her own wet arousal only barely cutting down the burn as she takes him deep. Jon's knuckles are white in the sheets as she seats herself, pulls back up, uses him as he tries to stay quiet and fails with shuddering sobs. When he tries to look at her she snarls and grabs his chin, shoving his head to the side with nails digging into his jaw. She doesn't know why, she doesn't care.

 

No condom means she when his breath hitches in that way she's beginning to recognize she pulls off with a slick sound, grabs his hand and shoves it between her legs. "You don't get anything until I do," she growls, lets his shaking fingers push and probe and slide, thumb pressing her clit until she gasps, heat and bite and painful satisfaction. He watches her, she feels his eyes and for one, brief moment she doesn't mind.

 

It passes and Daisy pulls back, her sharp gaze enough to have him look away. She guides his hand still slick with her to his erection still painful against his stomach. "Now," she orders and he does, fists himself until he spills on his stomach with a quiet cry.

 

—

 

In a dream flowers grow out of her back.

 

They aren’t daisies. Daisies can’t have thorns, sweet little white petaled blooms that don’t draw blood. Seeds planted in her back sprout with thorns, bulge under her skin until they break through. She doesn’t have to claw. They burst.

 

Her ragged back tells her to have a body count. A shadow in the doorway wants to watch but cannot find her in the concrete maze of unfinished work. A long time ago she saw a corpse and a man who should be a corpse and a body rife with great tears that dripped the insides. Those drippings tell her to have a body count. They tell her to spill. They offer singing blood rather than fear, they want to plant thorns and vines throughout her all.

 

The doctor pulls a seed out and tells her it’s a daisy, and she sticks her fingers in his soft parts until he understands no, not that. Not sweet, not little. 

 

There’s no fear in his corpse and it always wants more. It doesn’t want her to chase, it wants her to march.

 

She wakes up. She gets up. She runs her tongue over too blunt teeth.

 

—

 

Daisy doesn’t make him wear the collar outside of his flat, even if she considers it. Only a couple of weeks into their little cat and mouse arrangement she’s come to learn a lot about Jon, most of which she can’t say she cares about either way.

 

He never stares or blushes when she undresses. Occasionally he’ll look away in ingrained politeness but there’s no hunger to his eyes when he does look. First she assumes he prefers men, then she remembers Basira sharing gossip from Melanie, Jon and his lack of interest in sex with an old flame.

 

So he isn’t interested in anyone, and that works well enough for her. This wasn’t about their bodies, it was hardly about sex when it came down to it. It was about fear and force, about all the terrible things she could do to Jon, all the terrible things she did do.

 

The day she gave him the collar she took a belt to him until he came sobbing over her knee. The next day she brought a strap-on and fucked him he came sobbing over the bed, then kept fucking him as he ran his voice to the ground between begging for more and begging to stop, just a moment, god Daisy please.

 

It’s the moments after he’s the most bearable, quiet and dazed and far away from his own head. The rest of the time he watches her so closely. More than once she’s wondered what he thinks he’s learned of her through this. The answer would probably lose him teeth.

 

One moment after he grasps at her wrist, the blind fumbling of a child seeking comfort. He’s on the bed, trembling in the mess he made of himself, the aftermath of her whims. There’s no request, not a word spoken, but Daisy knows he wants her to stay.

 

She imagines pretending he’s Basira, a fantasy so silly it fizzles after only a moment and she chuckles low. Of course she doesn’t stay,  lets Jon’s fingers slide off her wrist, and it changes nothing the next time she comes over.

 

—

 

Lately Daisy’s noticed Elias’ scent before she sees him.

 

Still sharp, still expensive, still ink and paper and polished leather but— but underneath there’s a smell like old bones, preserved and dry organic. Something people weren’t meant to know the scent of. Underneath that is a hint she cannot dig out.

 

He doesn’t bring up her adventures with Jon again, denies her the satisfaction of it. All his words for her are orders and answers, only when he deigns to give them.

 

At least until one day she’s standing to leave and he asks, “Tell me, Ms. Tonner, how are the dreams?”

 

Daisy bares her teeth in response and he regards the sharp point of her canines with interest. She slams the door behind her and pictures his teeth in her hands, a trophy of broken molars and blood. Unbidden her head answers him — _worse_ , _so much worse, ever since this began_.

 

There’s a crack in the frame where she slammed. She never knew her own strength.

 

—

 

Daisy has a nice collection of toys she keeps in a duffle bag in the back of her closet. Despite the selection they were rarely used before her little discovery of Jonathan Sims. She likes pain given, she likes blood and bruises and the thrill of danger. She likes fear, real fear, not play acting or feigned.

 

It should be a matter of control, finding people with similar interests and learning what boundaries there were and keeping herself in check. That was the way of things and Daisy hates it, the control and restraint and pushing violent little parts of her down down down until they can’t claw their way up. She hates knowing finally getting that hint of real fear meant the safeword uttered moments later and satisfaction at an end.

 

The pale imitation of what she wanted was never worth the effort so Daisy rarely bothered. She found her toys, items that piqued her interest, ones she could use on herself to a halfway satisfaction.

 

Now she’s thinking of keeping them under Jon’s bed for easy access. How very domestic, she muses as she watches Jon twist in his restraints.

 

She sits in his desk chair watching the bed, watching Jon kneeling on top of it. His arms are bound behind his back, ropes forming thick cuffs at the wrist, then the elbow, then high on the bicep. One of his nicer ties gags him — she always liked how indignant it made him to stretch and ruin the cloth.

 

He rests his forehead on sheets, hands grasping at air and sweat sticking hair to his temple and neck. She managed to work three toys into him, (two of reasonable size, one long and thin and pulsing.) One of the first two vibrate along with the pulse and sends Jon moaning high behind his gag every time he shifts. There’s drool on the sheets, tears beading his eyes and sweat sticking his hair everywhere.

 

He’s a glorious, disgusting sort of mess and Daisy spreads her legs, indulges in the heat pooling between them when she slides her fingers under her waist band and to her clit.

 

There were no boundaries here, not really, and Daisy wonders what it says about her — what is says that she still isn’t sure she’d stop if Jon begged her to. She doesn’t really care what it says about Jon that he keeps coming back, that not once has he breached the topic of a safeword or boundary. Maybe he’s that much of a masochist, maybe he’s too afraid of her to ask, maybe he feels more human when it hurts. Maybe he’s as addicted to fear as she is.

 

Daisy rubs herself, watches Jon turn his head at the sound of her zipper coming undone. He stares and she lets him, gives him that crumb at he shakes on the bed. She knows him well enough to realize it isn’t the action itself but what it means — she’s enjoying herself, she’s satisfied with the show. He’s done well.

 

“Good boy,” she offers, smirks as he closes his eyes and whines deep in his throat.

 

—

 

Jon comes off the plane in clothes Daisy doesn’t recognize. All in all he’s in one piece, surprising enough given his record. She was half convinced Elias would send her to babysit but he doesn’t, instead sends her to kill and kill and kill, sawdust ground into her boots. She’s gotten good at it. She swears she can smell the cloves before taking note of the glass eyes.

 

They don’t speak much as she leads him to the car, mostly Jon’s incessant damn questions about the state of the Archives, like he couldn’t pick up a phone the entire trip and find out himself. Her grunts and one worded responses clue him in and he shuts up fast enough, keeping his snide comments under his breath as Daisy—

 

As she smells _something_ . It takes too long to realize that’s what was bothering her, the itching under her skin was some smell that shouldn’t _be_ yet was right under her nose. An airport could be host to any number of odors but this one rankles, permeates and follows.

 

It takes just as damnably long to realize it’s coming from Jon.

 

They’re nearly to the parking lot, Jon’s eyes fixed on his phone— probably letting Martin or whoever know he’d be in soon, whatever his important plan was, setting up their little secret meeting. Daisy scans the area, finds a restroom and grabs Jon by the collar. He squawks as she drags him in.

 

A middle aged man at the sink stares in shock at the intrusion. “H-hey, this is the men’s—“

 

“ _Get out_ ,” Daisy all but snarls, and the man doesn’t need to be told twice.

 

“Daisy, for god’s sake what—“ Jon tries, finds himself slammed against a wall for his trouble. Daisy runs her tongue over her teeth, presses and feels the sharp tip of her canines cut into her tongue. The taste of blood is heady.

 

She steps forward, puts her nose to his neck and breaths in. The smell is somehow so much worse than Elias’, so invasive and strong. A growl forms in her throat and she doesn’t miss the way Jon’s heartbeat races in turn.

 

“This shirt,” she says, breathing it in again.

 

Jon’s tone is dazed when he attempts an answer to a question she didn’t ask. “I- I borrowed it. Or. I suppose I won’t be giving it back, my other was—“

 

“Who?” Daisy interrupts. Jon’s collar is stretched in her grip now, warping out of shape and showing bruises she left days and days before. They’re fading, yellow and green.

 

She puts her teeth to one and the sound Jon makes is high and fearful. Daisy almost laughs— she missed him, it turns out. She bites instead.

 

“God why does it— _Daisy_ we’re in public, someone could come through any moment and—“ Jon fumbles over words, and when the bite draws blood he finally answers breathlessly. “Julia Montauk, Trevor Herbert, I helped… I helped them with a monster.”

 

The names mean very little though she knows both - the tramp and the serial killer’s daughter. What matters is she has a name to the scent, and Daisy releases her teeth, rubs herself against him, jaw against jaw. He hasn’t shaved and it scrapes her skin. He trembles in her grip like he doesn’t know what to do.

 

The moment breaks with footsteps beyond the door, Jon’s heartbeat increasing in volume with clap clap clap against hard tile. They move passed and Jon lets out a breath. Daisy shoves off him, jaw tight.

 

“Let’s go,” she orders, doesn’t wait for any sort of answer.

 

He doesn’t smell like them anymore.

 

—

 

Daisy hates Elias with a vivid heart. It's addictive, that sort of hatred. It's a reason to move forward, an excuse for great violence, a cleansing focus on a singular point. She loves hating Elias, maybe she'd admit that one day. Now any time she spent thinking of Elias was imagining his broken, jutting jaw and bleeding, toothless mouth pulled back in soundless screams.

 

Elias goes over particulars alone with her, days after the little show he put on for the others with old tapes and _Gertrude Robinson recording_. His snide comments about the simplicity of her violent solution aside he doesn't seem particularly put off by their 'blow the Unknowing to the moon with C4' plan. If anything he's nearly chipper, the animation of a good story coming to an end. 

 

It doesn't matter and never did, so Daisy takes what he tells her (orders like an owner with an unruly  _mutt_ ) and stands. Elias clicks his tongue to get her attention before she opens the door. "Jon is waiting for you in the stairwell. Try to keep him in good condition for the upcoming incident, will you?"

 

A sore spot, and for once her curiosity overrides her satisfaction at taking from Elias Bouchard. "That's not an order."

 

"It is not. I am hoping sense and rationality will be persuasive enough."

 

"Why?" Daisy turns, looks at Elias in his human suit all carefully pressed and spotless. "You could have ordered me to stop at any point."

 

_You could have stopped me_ is something she doesn't say. It stings between her ribs, a dull ache she wants to carve out with her nails. She fucking hopes when Elias watches them it aches much worse.

 

"I could have," Elias agrees in such a bland, unassuming way it makes her skin crawl. 

 

"Are you going to tell me you did it for Jon?"

 

This makes Elias laugh, more an exhale colored with amusement. "Hardly. You are not good for Jon. If you were any worse I may have been forced to intervene, but as it were I must allow Jon to make what terrible choices he will."

 

Daisy's lip curls. "And you wouldn't be a terrible choice?"

 

The silence is answer enough, only a beat before Elias answers a different question altogether. "You are a development in a series of developments, Ms. Tonner. Each one is a mark, gentle or destructive, that shapes the overall work. If you'll forgive the heavy handed metaphors then you are a set of teeth and I am a pair of eyes. We each have a role, and mine is to watch the work unfold."

 

"You're full of shit," Daisy wastes no time informing him of it, and hates the way he looks at her in amusement, like he expected as much. "He'd rather be hunted like an animal by someone who can barely stand him than be cared for by you. Must hurt, Bouchard."

 

"Is this where I ask why you've never admitted your feelings to Ms. Hussain?" Elias watches her. She can feel it on her turned back. "I don't have to, Daisy. I know why."

 

She leaves and his eyes linger down the hall, down the stairs. They linger when she finds Jon, until she pins him to his desk and blinds them both to anything else with fingers and teeth.

 

—

 

The bed and breakfast is cute, a cozy spot to count the hours before doomsday. Daisy rooms with Basira and Jon with Tim, unspoken agreement of what seems best at surface level. Maybe if any of the others knew of the nights she spent at Jon's apartment it would be different.

 

Basira sits on on her bed, legs curled under her and hijab folded to the side as she looks through the laptop in front of her. Her dark hair pools in slow waves down her shoulder and Daisy  _wants_. Like this Basira is so unguarded and casual, so blessedly human. Here Basira is the smell of coffee in the squad car, intentionally out of tune singing to a pop song on the radio, a small smile in passing that's glad to see Daisy. She's a firm presence at her back.

 

(And for a moment Daisy wants to kneel by the bed, rest her forehead to the sheets and confess. Sometimes I think I could want to kill Elias more than I want to save you. I could want to kill more than I want to save. I want to kill more than I want to save. I never wanted to save. I didn't always want to kill. I always liked fear and shame more than laughter. When Calvin looked at that opening in the fence, when he looked scared I smiled. I mocked him. I wanted more. I want more. I want you by my side. I want to chase terrible things with you. I want to see you with blood on your teeth, wild eyed.

 

Wants upon wants. She imagines lifting her head to find eyes dotting the black beyond their windows. _I know why,_ Elias says.)

 

Basira looks over at her, at Daisy standing by the door. "Daisy?" she tries, and Daisy can see a night of words between them. In every other story she stops and sits, she speaks in vulnerability or simple companionship. In those stories she knows exactly what she wants, and the only fear is rejection.

 

"I'm going for a walk," she says, leaves Basira and stories behind.

 

On the porch of the building is Jon, cigarette in hand. He looks to her when she walks over, tired lines and smoke. In most lights he is so very human- thin skin on top of sharp bones, too solid to be called birdlike but too brittle all the same. Jon looks like a man who lost his way, but he does look like a man. It's the eyes that give him away, she thinks. He never blinks as much as he should.

 

"Am I monster?" Daisy asks him, leaning against the railing of old wood and chipped paint.

 

Jon considers, and maybe that should be answer enough. "I don't know. I don't think I'm a good judge anymore."

 

Daisy snorts, "Aren't monsters your profession?"

 

"Exactly," says Jon with a flick of ash and a humorless breath. "All I ever see are monsters now."

 

She reaches and takes his cigarette, takes a drag and coughs the smoke out. Jon's lips quirk immediately, even if he's wise enough to say nothing, and it says a lot about her that her first thought is to grind the lit end of the cigarette on his tongue for that.

 

She settles for crushing it underfoot instead. "How do you live with it? Being one of the monsters."

 

The question shudders through him like a physical blow, curls him inward in a way that has her tongue to teeth. 

 

"By being more curious than I am horrified," Jon finally tells her, refusing to meet her eye.

 

Daisy pushes off the railing, inhales. Beyond them smells of summer, sticky heat cooling in the evening hush. Here there's only smoke and a tang of fear. "Come on," she orders. "Stoker won't be back from his moping for a while."

 

At a glance Jon is hesitant, knows her offer is blood and teeth and sweet distraction. Maybe his reluctance is shame, knowing they should be preparing, huddled together in a unified front. Maybe he wants to run so she can catch him, or to escape a refusal she may not accept. Maybe it's something she can't fathom, and she just doesn't care.

 

In the end he choses her and the monstrous thing between them.

 

—

 

In a dream her feet beat against the pavement.

 

They make meaty sounds and no thorns tug under her skin. Her teeth are too big in her mouth, break off in little bloody chunks when she gnashes too hard. She spits them out and chases still. They land by something silent in the wet, rain slick road that's watching. Watching. Sad, scared, watching. 

 

The beat of her running isn’t a steady one and it tears up the pads of her feet. There’s a feral joy in it, blooming under this night haze, under the wet thump of ruined skin on the wet asphalt. That joy isn’t clean or sweet, it has a body count. It promises reward for closing a jaw over a racing pulse. It promises nothing and she wants nothing from it. She drinks fear and sweat.

 

If she laughs into the nothing landscape it’s over. The eyes turn away. There are no flowers here.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm a clueless ace and have no diddly dang idea what i'm doing but i tried
> 
> happy bday though amber <3 you're a good


End file.
